


If Tomorrow Never Comes

by Rhiannon_A_Christy



Series: Leather And Lace [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Alternate Universe - Western, F/M, cowboy!Bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-02-02 17:22:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12730959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhiannon_A_Christy/pseuds/Rhiannon_A_Christy
Summary: Sometimes to go forwards we must first go backwards.





	1. Part 1

  The world around Darcy was silent but for the chirping of birds and the distant roar of cars traveling down the old dirt road. There was a chill in the air that wasn’t just from the dense fog hanging heavy over the field. Darcy pulled her jacket tighter around herself, hoping that the old leather would somehow block out the cold and despair filling her up.

 

 Jane watched from the car, her back pressed against the rusted metal. She sighed as her friend trudged through the tall weeds in a pair of worn blue jeans.

 

  “You don’t have to do this, you know.” Jane had tried to talk the younger woman out of coming, but Darcy would hear nothing of it.

 

  “I have to see it… I… Jane you don’t understand, I just have to.” Darcy had spent weeks trying to explain this to her friend after she had returned, but how could Jane ever understand? She hadn’t been the one to go, she hadn’t been the one to lose her heart… and lose everything.

 

  Ignoring Jane, Darcy walked the last few yards. The toe of her boot tapped against the edge of a stone sticking up from out of the weeds. She swallowed down the lump forming in her throat and crouched down to run her fingers over the stone. It had once been swept clean, the weeds curling around it plucked away. But over a hundred years had whittled away at the rock, now she could barely make out the two names that had been roughly carved into it.

 

  Forcing away the tears she stood and walked around the house. The years had not been kind to it, the roof had fallen in long ago and the thick wood walls had pitted and splintered with age. What windows were still intact, were encrusted with a thick layer of grime. She desired nothing more than to step beyond the threshold and walk the steps of a life long ago, but she knew the floorboards would be just as rotted as the roof.

 

  Rounding the side of the house she came to a stop. The window, built a bit lower down than the others, led into the kitchen. It had been one of the busiest rooms in the house, always filled with the aroma of fresh baked pie and bread. He used to come in after a long day on the ranch, make teasing comments about the heat and the lack of a need for clothing, steal a biscuit and plop himself down at the table.

 

  Darcy pressed her hands into her eyes, willing the images to stop. Maybe Jane had been right, maybe this had been a bad idea. Instead of hightailing it back to the car as she should have, Darcy leaned into the wall and ran the sleeve over the window.

 

  Through the now dirt smeared glass she could make out several bundles of roses hanging from the ceiling. It had been a habit that had formed during the years. He would bring her flowers from the sparse garden and she would hang them in front of the window to dry. Her favorite blooms would be cut from the brittle stems and placed inside a crystal cut glass box he had brought back from a trip to Boston. She figured the box was probably still sitting on the vanity top in their room. It was where she had left it when… when…

 

  Darcy pushed away from the wall and rushed back to Jane. After rounding the house her foot caught on the marker stone and she went tumbling to the ground. She stayed in the dirt, her knees burning from the fall. But any pain it caused was nothing to the one she felt in her chest. She took in huge breaths, tears falling without her permission. For the world it had been over a hundred years, but for her it had only been three months.

 

  What had been the point of it all? Why had this happened to her, why when this was the outcome?

 

  Since she returned she had often wished that none of it had ever happened. Over and over she had tried to think on how she could have avoided it all. The pain, the heartache.

 

* * *

 

 

  It had all started when she had agreed to spend the holidays with Jane’s family. Of course, Jane hadn’t told her that meant staying in an almost two-hundred-year-old house in the middle of nowhere. The woman conveniently left out her uncle’s old family estate.

 

  Darcy had been left to her devices for much of the time, what with Jane trying to deal with all her cousins. To alleviate some of her boredom she had gone exploring. This was her first mistake. In the movies wasn’t it always the people that explored old houses on their own that disappeared?

 

  Her exploring brought her to the upper most room. It had been closed off, everything inside covered in dust and cobwebs. She had marveled at the pretty little trinkets laid out atop an old dresser. The place looked like it hadn’t been touched since the Victorian ages.

 

  She had run her fingers through the dust, taking time to pick up one item or another. Finally, she came to the closet. Slowly she opened the door, expecting to find old clothes. Instead there was only a lone bundle of dried roses. Behind the brittle flowers was another door. This one bolted shut. For a moment she felt like she had been transported inside one of her favorite books. There was the insane thought that if she stepped through that door she would find herself in Narnia.

 

  Laughing at the absurdity of it, she reached for the lock. The rusted metal broke apart and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. She had no idea what she expected on the other side, but she was disappointed when all it revealed was a dark, empty storage area.

 

  She took a step back, turned, and nearly fell on her ass when she noticed the room around her. Everything looked the same as before, only every speck of dust and grime was gone. The whole room looked fresh, as though it had just been cleaned. Impossible of course, or at least that was what Darcy kept saying to herself whenever a new thought rushed through her head.

 

  From downstairs she could hear laughter and the faint sound of a piano. She blinked. She had remembered an old piano stuffed in the corner of the drawing room, but Jane had said that it hadn’t worked in years. Actually, her uncle had gone off into a story about the damned thing. According to him the last time the piano had been played was back in 1885. It had been at the wedding of a family friend that the piano had been broken, or really shot. The groom had made some rather dangerous enemies, ones that didn’t care about hurting innocents as long as they got their man. Darcy remembered seeing the bullet holes, she had even made an inappropriate joke about holy music.

 

  The piano music grew louder as the door opened. Darcy blinked as Jane appeared… dressed in a rather frilly dress with her hair piled up in curls atop her head.

 

  “Oh Darcy, what are you doing hiding away up here? I know you dislike dances, but Papa went out of his way. The least you can do is show up for your own birthday party.” Jane stood in the doorway, gloved hands pressed against her hips.

 

  Darcy blinked again. Nothing about what just came out of Jane’s mouth made sense. Her father had died years ago, and Darcy’s birthday was months off.

 

  “And what are you wearing?” Jane looked Darcy up and down, her mouth thin. “You have got to stop stealing the farmhand’s clothes. People will talk. Come on, I’ll help you get ready.”

 

  Darcy remained silent as Jane dressed and groomed her. She was quiet as the other woman pulled her out of the room and down the stairs. She said nothing as Jane maneuvered her from room to room. But when she was finally pushed into a room filled with various dancing couples she found she could no longer hold her tongue.

 

 “What the fuck?!”

 

 

 

 

 

       

 

 

 

  


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy and Horse don't mix

  Darcy had been in the past for a month. She would like to say that she had handled it well, but that would be a lie. A huge lie. After her almost scandal inducing outburst at the party, she had been sent back to her room. Jane’s father had guided her out of the parlor throwing excuses over his shoulder about exhaustion or something. She had gone on to lie on her bed whispering ‘what the fuck?’ for the next few hours before falling asleep.

 

  When she had woken her first thought was to find Jane and tell her about the strange dream she had, her second had been the ever eloquent ‘what the ever-living fuck?’ This continued to be a theme of her daily life in 1880. Even a month in as she still expected it to be some elaborate joke.

 

  If she had ever traveled back in time she has expected it would be like in the movies. She would find herself lost in a world with no one familiar. Instead it turned out she was a ward of the Foster family. From what she had been able to piece together her parents had died when she had been younger and left her to the charge of Michael Foster. She had lived with them as a daughter, and sister to their own child since she had been six years of age.

 

  It was strange to think of Past-Darcy, as she had dubbed the woman she was swapped with. She wondered if she was in the future, or perhaps they were just the same person split across time. When she had been in high-school she had gone into a whole phase where she believed in reincarnation and even soul sharing. She had given it up and moved on to other things before she graduated, but now she wondered if that younger her had the right of it after all.

 

  No matter what the deal was with her, Past-Jane was definitely her Jane. The woman spent most of her time in the family library reading every book on science and the world as she could. Her father would just roll his eyes, but indulge his daughter in her every whim. No matter what her mother had to say about it. For Past-Darcy, it seemed she was much like Future-Darcy. Loud mouthed and ready to give her opinion at every opportunity. This was, according to Jane’s mother, the reason why neither of the girls were married at their age.

 

  For the first week, Darcy had spent all her time with Jane. She was a familiar face in a strange world. It wasn’t long though before she got tired of the library and once again started exploring. As it turned out, Jane’s family came from a long line of ranchers, and the huge house she had remembered from the future had once been in the center of a rather large and lucrative cattle ranch.

 

  Every day she would wake up, eat breakfast, and dash off to explore. Mama Foster called it indecent, Papa called it taking an interest in the family business. Darcy would walk the great expanse of land, watch as the hired hands rode out to the cattle. One day she had packed a lunch and spent it watching some of the men mend the fence.

 

  Sam and Steve were two of the best hands on the ranch, and a couple of the best looking. The thing was, people were not the best looking in the old west. Hard lives and hard diets played havoc on their skin. Even so, these two men looked like they came out of an old Hollywood movie and she loved watching them.

 

  The day she had gone to watch them mend the fence had turned out to be a wet and miserable day. They had tried to convince her to return to the house, but she had brushed them off and bit into her cold biscuit. They had teased and laughed at and with her, talking about life on the ranch. Around noon she had finally convinced them to sit down with her and share her food. After they had finished, Sam had pulled her up and stuffed a pair of leather gloves over her hands. She spent the rest of the afternoon learning how to mend a snapped wire fence.

 

  When she wasn’t hanging out with Sam and Steve, she was usually in the stables. She hadn’t been one of those girls growing up that had been obsessed with horses. Her passion as a child had been hippos, not that she could explain why now. But there was just something about horses when one lived a life dependent on them. If she was going to be living in the past she was determined to survive, and that meant learning everything she could. And that included riding a horse.

 

  She had thought to ask Sam or Steve, but not knowing if Past-Darcy had been able to ride she didn’t want to call attention to herself. In the end, she decided she would observe others and then try on her own. It had been a stupid idea, but hindsight is always 20/20 is it not?

 

* * *

 

 

  It had been early fall when she had decided to attempt actually riding a horse. She had spent a few weeks in the stables just getting to know the animals and she was certain which one should would ride. He was a beautiful horse, all tawny with a single white mark in the middle of his eyes. She had taken to calling him Sandy, completely ignoring the creature’s true name.

 

  She had waited until Past-Jane and Mama Foster had gone into town. Darcy had spent the whole morning complaining about feeling ill; a bit of pain behind the eyes and a sour stomach. The ruse had worked when Mama Foster sent a half ready Darcy back to her room; for surely it wasn’t safe for her to be traveling in her condition.

 

  Darcy had waited for an hour after they left before she slipped from her room. She had nicked a pair of trousers and a shirt from Sam, as the clothing she had on when she first arrived had been tossed out. She buttoned and tied herself up and laughed. She knew she looked ridiculous. Though Sam was the smaller of her two friends, his clothes still hung on her like sheets on a line.

 

  The next part was tricky, she had to get to the stables, saddle Sandy and make it out to the trail without being seen. She couldn’t believe her own luck when not one ranch hand made to stop her. She really shouldn’t have gotten cocky.

 

  It took a few tries getting her short frame up on the horse, but eventually she settled herself. The problem came when she tried to move… as in she didn’t. The horse just stood there, every few moments turning his head back to stare at her. She knew it was silly, but she swore the expression on his face was one of disdain. She was even more convinced of this when she decided that she picked the wrong horse and was going to give up, and Sandy thought it would be funny to dart off with her clinging to his back.

 

  She held on tightly, hands grasping at anything and everything, just hoping that she would be alive by the end of it all. Eyes clamped tight, she didn’t see the rider coming up alongside her. She didn’t hear him either, not with the way she was screaming her head off.

 

  A strong arm slipped around her waist, and she could hear calming words whispered in her ear instructing her to let go of the saddle-horn. Once she realized that she was being rescued, she let go and allowed herself to be pulled into the lap of her savior. She clutched onto him, face hidden against his chest as they rode. Movement brought her attention back to Sandy, and she watched amazed as the man holding her effortlessly roped the horse.

 

  They were both silent on the way back to the stables; Darcy too embarrassed to even look up at her rescuer, and who knew what the man holding her thought. When they returned she could feel his rumbling voice through his chest as he spoke to one of the other men. He handed off Sandy, and for a moment Darcy wondered if he would simply dismount and walk off.

 

  A gloved hand slid under her chin, forcing her to look up at the man who saved her life. When her eyes met his she felt a jolt in her chest. Sam and Steve were good looking, but this man was perfect. He was quiet as he looked over her face, his eyes returning again and again her hers. Eventually he gave a crooked smile that made the corner of his eyes crinkle.

 

  “Ma’am, maybe horse-ridin’ just ain’t for you.” The man let go of her chin and effortlessly stepped to the ground. He reached up, grasped ahold of her, and set her onto her feet.

 

  She wobbled a bit, but steadied when he placed his hands on her shoulders. It was at that moment that she saw Papa Lewis running like the hounds of hell were after him, Sam and Steve at his side. It was also at that moment she knew she was fucked…. Looking up at the man whose arms were still around her… fucked in more than one way.

 

* * *

 

 

  So, it turned out that Past-Darcy also didn’t know how to ride a horse. It was a widely known fact around the ranch. When Papa Lewis had reached her, he had first gathered her up in his arms a few tears falling onto her shoulder. It was later that she got berated.

 

  First, she had to deal with the disappointed and frightened stares of her friends as Papa led her back towards the house. Then she was made to sit and listen to Papa yell at her for over an hour. When he finally calmed down he sent her to her room. She was in tears, but she would rather have that then what happened when Mama Lewis returned home.

 

  Darcy carefully turned in her bed, being careful not to put much pressure on her backside. All of that aside, she was smiling. During dinner she had sat quietly, if stiffly, just listening to her Foster parents. Papa spoke of her rescuer, and she was excited to finally know his name. James Barnes, better known as Bucky. He was a childhood friend of Steve’s who had come to work on the ranch.

 

  She curled up on her side, eyes landing on her window. Bucky, what an appropriate cowboy name. She laughed and cuddled up to her pillow. Maybe being stuck in the past wasn’t so bad after all.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! I actually got the next bit done. I’m craving westerns right now, so I will probably be writing a lot of them.
> 
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:**

> So, like I really needed to do this. I have so many work in progresses it isn’t funny. But I’ve had a been several weeks and I needed a western au. And so here it is, a different kind of western au. I also might be stuck on the whole Darcy gets transported back in time thing, so have one where she gets sent back to the old west.
> 
>  
> 
> This will not be a long story, maybe three or four parts, and I’m thinking it will be Wintershock, mainly cause I just really want some Wintershock right now. Plus, Cowboy!Bucky! Come on!
> 
>  
> 
> And the part at the beginning with the old house and roses is inspired by a story my grandfather told me. When he was younger, back during the Depression, his family lived with an aunt and uncle of his on their farm. It had been his favorite place, and his favorite aunt. Because of different things they were forced to move. Years later after he was married he returned to the old farm house and looked in the kitchen window. Hanging from the ceiling were two bunches of tea roses. Every year his aunt would gather a bunch of tea roses from the bushes outside the house and hang them in the kitchen and let them dry. They would stay there all year and she would replace them in the summer. The house was all worn down and falling apart as no one cared for it after his aunt and uncle died, but years later those roses still remained in the window. I admit, I cried when he told me the story. I still do.
> 
> This is also inspired by the scary doors in the back of my closet that leads to a creepy dark storage area. Too bad all they actually lead to is lots of wolf spiders and not Cowboy Bucky.
> 
>  
> 
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.


End file.
